Revenge, Retribution, Retaliation, Restitution

Misunderstanding about these four "re...s" underlies much of the confusion surrounding capital punishment, mercy and a range of issues in Church and society. In common usage they are often used interchangeably as all indicate a not-offer-the-other-cheek response to violence and injustice. But their interior forms (as I will use these words) are distinct, even contradictory of each other. Revenge is a form of hatred: a desire to hurt the other due to having been hurt by him. Retribution, by contrast, is an expression of justice, the intention to right or balance a wrong, which may or may not be accompanied by righteous anger or sinful vengeange. Revenge goes beyond anger into a spiritual sin of hatred and the active desire to harm another. A person might be burning with anger against a wrong but not slip into vengeange. In revenge the victim responds to violence emotionally, with similar or greater intensity. By contast, retribution as justice is a more sober, rational judgment, seeking to balance or correct the wrongdoing. For example, a judge/jury handing down a verdict/punishment are seeking retribtuion, but not ordinarily revenge. A judge or jury member with vengeange would be incapable of rendering proper retribution. Traditional religion, not only Catholicism, believes in divine retribution after death: the good are rewarded, the bad punished. Indeed one of the proofs for God and afterlife is the aching awareness of a healthy conscience that there must be such afterlife because of the horrific disparity evident in this life where often the evil flourish and the innocent suffer violence. So revenge and retribution are entirely different and even contradictory of each other. Similarly, retaliation can be understood as an expression of revenge. It can be such but need not be; it can be a protective, sober, just act as in deterrence. Imagine a boy, a new freshman in high school, is being bullied by an older boy: each time they pass in the hall, he gets pushed. It may be a good idea for him to retaliate: the next time he is pushed, he pushes back, harder with both arms, so as to land the aggressor on the floor. Additionally he yells for all to hear: "That is the LAST time you push me!" The act needs to be modulated: not so strong as to harm but strong enough to deter. He may get beaten up; he may get in trouble with the Dean. But it would be a heroic, just act: rightly defending his own dignity, as well as that of other victims of this bully, and may teach the agressor a badly needed lesson. As I type, Israel is retaliating against Hamas attacks: this has nothing to do with hatred but everything to do with protecting the innocent and deterring further aggression. Lastly, resitution is entirely different: it is the full restoration of peace and justice, but is well beyond the provence of law and punishment. Full amends requires: the agressor acknowledges wrong, asks for forgiveness and offers amends; the victim accepts the apology and the penance and in turn gives pardon. This is a rich, mysterious moral-spiritual-moral drama and cannot be effected by law and punishment. At the end, as in a family or friendship fight, the solidarity and peace will be even stronger and deeper by way of the contrition and mercy. The easy dismissal of capital punishment by Pope Francis and even by his two predecessors seems rooted in a lack of attention to the form of retribution. All three seem to dismiss it as revenge, which is of course not allowed the Christian. It suggests a neglect of natural law which does not depend upon acceptance of the Gospel but rather on objective, intelligent moral principles accessible to all who have good faith. It is part of a culture that despises the specifically masculine, in this case justice as retribution and retaliation, and a world view that is pollyanish, demasculinized, and impotent. It is part of a weakened, softened, sentimental and emotional doctrine of mercy that has come to prevail under Pope Francis.